How to compile DigiKam 3.1 on Ubuntu 12.04

Title of my previous post How to install the latest digiKam version on Ubuntu was a little misleading, because the instructions were for digiKam version 2.9 (which was in fact the latest when I started to investigate how to compile it on my Ubuntu) but in the meantime versions 3.0 and soon after 3.1 were officially published by developers. Therefore my post was outdated as soon as it was published. Because of that I promised “I will also try to compile new version and post instructions as soon as possible”. Promise is a promise, so here are instructions how to compile digiKam 3.1 on Ubuntu 12.04.

update: If you want to compile digiKam 3.2 on Ubuntu, I have a new post with instructions here.
update: If you are scanning old dia slides, please check my evaluation of Reflecta DigitDia 5000.

Commands should be typed or copy/pasted in the Terminal, if you do not know how, see my previous post. As already mentioned if you have already installed an older version of digiKam you must remove it first with:

sudo apt-get remove digikam

or if you followed my instructions how to compile version 2.9 (you can also use "dpkg –l | grep digi" to check the name to remove):

sudo apt-get remove digikam2.9

Commands are basically the same as described in previous post, therefore I will only list them without long explanations:

sudo apt-get autoremove
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
cd Downloads

Next comand all in one line:

wget http://download.kde.org/stable/digikam/digikam-3.1.0.tar.bz2

tar jxvf digikam-3.1.0.tar.bz2
cd digikam-3.1.0/
mkdir build
cd build
sudo apt-get install gcc cpp make cmake checkinstall
sudo apt-get install kdelibs5

Update: this line was missing:

sudo apt-get install libgpod4-nogtk

sudo apt-get build-dep digikam kipi-plugins

Next comand all in one line:

cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=release -DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=`kde4-config --prefix` ..

Next comand all in one line:

sudo checkinstall --pkgname=digiKam3.1 --install=no make install

Check result of previous command to find your <deb-name> for next command:

sudo dpkg -i --force-overwrite <deb-name>

That's all, start digiKam from Dash Home and enjoy!

I somehow expected the same steps could be used to compile digiKam on Ubuntu 12.10 and on Debian distributions. Well, as captain Alberto Bertorelli from Allo' Allo' would have said "what a mistaka to maka". I installed both distrubutions and tried, but I had errors. If I solve the puzzle (read, find out how to compile without errors) I will publish it, but this time I am not making any promises.

After all I've had enough of installing Linux and compiling digiKam, it is time to start using digiKam on my scanned dia-slides.